Give All My Secrets Away
by Emjen Enla
Summary: [Complete] Anaka Skywalker had gotten really good at hiding things in the last few years, but she couldn't hide this, at least not alone. [pre-ROTS genderbender/Rule 63 AU, female!Anakin/male!Padmé, Anakin & Rex & Kix friendship]


**Title: Give All My Secrets Away**  
 **Author: Emjen Enla (Fanfiction)/emjen_enla (Wattpad)**  
 **Teaser: Anaka Skywalker had gotten really good at hiding things in the last few years, but she couldn't hide this, at least not alone. [pre-ROTS genderbender/Rule 63 AU, female!Anakin/male!Padmé, Anakin & Rex & Kix friendship]**  
 **Rating: PG-13/T**  
 **Canon/Timeline: Genderbender/Rule 63 AU probably containing aspects of both Canons. Takes place in the last year of the Clone Wars before the Order 66 episodes, but given that I built this AU on the assumption that the twins would have to be born before the events of ROTS, the actual timing is a little skewed**  
 **Dominant Characters: Anaka (Anakin) Skywalker, and—surprisingly given that this is an Anidala genderbender—Rex and Kix**  
 **Pairings: Anidala**  
 **Warnings: mild spoilers for the Clone Wars**  
 **Notes:**  
 **-This story kind of jumped on me a couple weeks and hasn't left me alone since. I'm kind of surprised because I'm not a huge fan of genderbenders. I did write one several years ago for a Fanfic contest. That one is calledYou're Stuck With Me, Master. (It's a universe where Ahsoka is a boy and is only published on Wattpad if you want to read it.) I'm kind of worried that this story is too weird. I really hope I don't regret posting it someday.**  
 **-This story is partially inspired by a drawing done by Shorelle called _King and Lionheart_ (you can find it on DeviantArt and Tumblr). I'm not sure who to credit with the masculine/feminine versions of Padmé and Anakin's names. There's a lot of versions of Anakin's name, but I thought Anaka seemed the most "Star Wars" (my other two favorites are Anika—my second choice—and Anilyn).**  
 **-This is only part of the story. I'm not sure if the place I'm stopping even works as an ending, but I could probably write a novel-length Fanfiction from this AU and I'm trying to keep from starting any new projects because my long fics never get done. Just so you have an idea of the size of this, however, I have two versions of this AU partially plotted out to through the end of ROTS. Version A ends with Anaka in the Darth Vader suit, Padém dead and Luke and Leia separated. In Version B, Anaka doesn't turn to the Dark Side and things turn out marginally better for all involved parties (though Palpatine still ends up Emperor).**  
 **-A lot of Anidala genderbenders also genderbend the twins (and therefore Han), but I'm not going to do that. The only characters other than Anaka and Padém that I'm genderbending are Padém's ex-girlfriends (Palia and Ruesha, maybe?) and obviously Padém's handmaidens (manservants?).**  
 **-The majority of Shorelle's female!Anakin artwork portrays her with a ponytail, but I decided to give her a braid for this story. I feel like a braid would keep your hair neater if you did the kind of crazy things a Jedi does. Plus, Anaka is a massive tomboy and would just want her hair out of the way so she doesn't have to worry about it. I have this mental image of Anaka walking through the _Resolute_ with Rex, giving rapid fire orders while braiding her hair at lightning speed, if anyone wants to draw that, please go ahead (I can't draw very well).**  
 **-This story is set after the destruction of the _Resolute_ so I just referred to the Jedi Cruiser as "the 501st's cruiser."**  
 **Disclaimer: I don't own _Star Wars_ or the song "Secrets" by OneRepublic that the title came from. I came up with the idea of flame jelly, though.**

* * *

Anaka Skywalker was almost three months pregnant before the feeling of another life growing inside of her became too strong to ignore.

That was different than saying that she hadn't wondered beforehand, she had, but she'd refused to give the matter any thought. There were other symptoms, the ones that were common for pregnant women, but they were easy to ignore and write off as stress or any number of the medical issues Kix was always going on about. That pesky sensation of another life which ambushed her whenever she meditated was the hard part. At first she'd wrote it off as stress or exhaustion or her imagination, but the feeling just kept getting stronger and stronger until she had to admit to herself what it was.

Still, she hadn't wanted to admit it. She needed to be absolutely certain before she did anything. So the next time their cruiser stopped over a Republic outpost, she got herself a couple hours off the ship and prepared to go down.

"You want some company, ma'am?" Rex asked when he found her in her quarters preparing to leave. He probably assumed she was going to a restaurant like she and Ahsoka once had. If Anaka was honest with herself that probably wasn't a bad idea, since the mere smell of the field rations she normally ate was enough to turn her stomach these days.

"I'll be fine on my own, Rex," she said shaking her waist-length hair out of its customary braid and arranging it so it covered her far-to-recognizable eye scar. Not for the first time since Padém Amidala had come back into her life, she wished she owned concealer, but Mom had always joked that Anaka had come into the galaxy a tomboy and Anaka knew that almost thirteen years in the Jedi Order had done nothing to soften those tendencies.

"I'm not saying you won't, ma'am," Rex argued. "But that doesn't mean you have to be alone."

He probably thought that she was going to go off and brood about what had happened with Ahsoka, and while on most other nights he would have been right, Anaka had different things on her mind tonight.

"I'm going down alone tonight, Rex," she said, studying herself in the refresher mirror. When she was satisfied that even in her dark robes and cloak she wasn't immediately recognizable as the Heroine With No Fear, she turned to face her captain. "I need some time alone. I'll be back in a couple hours."

Rex shifted on his feet. "Okay, ma'am, if you feel so strongly about it."

"I do," Anaka said and headed towards the door. "I'll see you later tonight."

* * *

The Republic outpost on this planet was mostly used for resupplying cruisers on longer tours of duty. It had been three months since the 501st had last been on Coruscant, and therefore three months since the last time Anaka had seen Padém. Normally she could spent hours longing for her husband, but thinking of him now just reminded her of what she was going planet-side for, so she tried not to think about it.

She got off a lartie in the middle of the Republic base and made a B-line for the rest of the city. She checked the time as she left. It was 18:09, she had about two hours before the last of the larties returned to their cruisers. If she wasn't back by then, she'd be stuck on the planet overnight, which wasn't preferable seen as the 501st was leaving again early the next morning.

After she left the base, she caught a hovertaxi and had the driver take her to the city's downtown district. Once she was there, she got on the subway and headed towards a residential district she hoped would be far enough from the base that people wouldn't assume every cloaked person they saw was a Jedi.

Once in the residential district, she found a drug store that was large and busy enough that the cashiers wouldn't remember her. She entered the store like a wraith, using the Force to deflect people's attention away from her. She didn't really need to bother because aside from a couple glances she got because of her cloak, no one really cared about her. Still, she was very quick and quiet as she selected a pregnancy test and went to the checkout.

The cashier didn't even look at her, because he was too busy confusing himself with the untraceable Republic credit chips she'd given him. An electronic transfer would have been easier, but the only account she had was registered under her name and monitored by the Jedi Order. The last thing she needed was someone in the Jedi Order noticing that the most famous Jedi in the Order had made a random stop in an out of the way drug store and start wondering what she'd bought.

When the cashier finally gave her the right change, she left the store and began to walk towards the base. She stuffed the bag and the test into the pocket of her cloak and tried to work up the courage to actually use it. She needed to do it before she returned to the base, because she didn't want to risk disposing of the test on base or worse on the 501st's cruiser. She needed to do it now, so she found the nearest public bathroom and braced herself.

* * *

The test came back positive. She wasn't really surprised, but she was utterly terrified. She had gotten very good at hiding things in the last few years. She could hide the fact that she and Padém were much more than casual friends. She could hide the fact that her heart leaped at the very mention of him. She could even hide the fact she didn't sleep in the Temple anymore. However, a baby was a completely different story. Sure she might be able to hide it for a couple months, but once she started showing it was over. She would be expelled from the Order and Padém would lose his position in the senate.

Even worse, the media would undoubtedly catch on, possibly even before the Jedi did. They would inevitably claim that the baby was Obi-Wan's because just about everyone in the galaxy was convinced that they were lovers. That rumor was ridiculous because she and Obi-Wan's relationship had never been romantic and never would be. Anaka had always been annoyed by that—there was very little as frustrating as everyone in the galaxy claiming you were in love with the man who was your father/brother figure—but it was even worse now, because it felt like the media was just stomping on Satine Kyrze's grave.

She sat in the public bathroom for a long, long time before her shaking slowed enough that she could throw everything away and return to the Republic base. She caught the last lartie back to the 501st's cruiser then went to her quarters. She sat on the floor and stared at the walls, trying to decide what to do. She had no idea; she knew next to nothing about children and even less about pregnancy.

What she really wanted to do was comm Padém. He could help her figure out what to do, and how to keep this a secret, but she couldn't call him. After the Temple bombing security on Coruscant had increased by a tenfold. Even with her superior skills with technology, Anaka couldn't send a simple "Regardless of what you might hear on the Holonet, I'm alive" message to her secret husband without someone overhearing it. She couldn't tell him she was pregnant in a comm message, she'd have to wait until she saw him in person and with the way the war was going there was no telling when that would be.

Still, she wanted to talk to someone, but there was no one else. The 501st would be rendezvousing with Obi-Wan's 224th legion in a few days, but Anaka couldn't tell Obi-Wan her secret. He was the perfect Jedi; he'd just hand her into the Council, which was exactly what she didn't want.

Rex was a possibility. He knew about her and Padém (he'd walked in on them kissing once a couple years ago) and she knew he'd be discrete with any secret entrusted to him. Unfortunately, for all their bravo clones were not very worldly. Anaka didn't even want to think about having to explain how nonclones came into the galaxy to her own clone captain.

So there was no one she could tell; she would have to deal with this on her own. She considered just resigning from the Order, but the end of the War was nowhere in sight and she didn't want to abandon the cause she'd poured some much sweat and blood into. She could wait until it became impossible for her to hide the baby anymore, then go AWOL for a couple months and claim she was looking for Ahsoka. That might work, but then she would have to be moving constantly and would probably have to deliver the baby on her own in hiding. She'd seen women die in childbirth back on Tatooine, and she wasn't sure she was comfortable with trying to give birth in the same conditions. Plus, if she went missing the Council would probably just send Obi-Wan after her and Obi-Wan was better at predicting her movements than she was herself at times.

Maybe she should just resign.

She was still sitting on the floor when the lights of the cruiser reverted to their daytime settings and clones and enlisted officers began moving around the ship, preparing to leave the base. She hadn't gotten any sleep.

Anaka pushed herself up off the floor and headed to the refresher. She took a cold shower to wake up and dressed. As she brushed her hair she glanced at the bottles of medications sitting on the countertop. Kix had prescribed them as treatment for her various "serious medical issues," but she hadn't taken any of them because she didn't like the way they muffled her Force powers. Now she was even more thankful; at least she didn't have to worry about those meds hurting her baby.

Her baby. She studied her stomach. Through her robes it looked just as flat as it always did. Was there really a baby growing in there? She couldn't believe it, though her Force senses told her it was true.

Her comlink beeped, jerking her out of her thoughts. She raised it to her mouth. "Skywalker."

"General, we're almost ready for the jump to lightspeed," Admiral Yularen's annoyed voice said. "Will you be joining us?"

"I'll be there in a minute, Admiral," Anaka said, cursing herself for not noticing the time. Last night's revelations aside, she was still a Jedi General and she still had duties to perform. She closed the link with Yularen and headed out of her quarters, braiding her still-wet hair as she went.

* * *

Anaka didn't think she'd ever been this nervous to meet with her former Master. She stood in the main hanger of the cruiser, outwardly calm. Her posture was straight and tall, her hands were clasped behind her back. Inside she was frantically testing and retesting the shields she'd built up to hide the baby from Obi-Wan. This would be her ultimate test, if Obi-Wan sensed the baby today this whole charade would be over.

Obi-Wan left the lartie he'd ridden between cruisers. He was smiling broadly. "Anaka," he said. "Ready for another adventure?"

Anaka forced a smile. "If you are, Master."

"Between you and me," Obi-Wan said as they began to walk across the hanger, "I think that we're going to be sent to Tyle. There's be a lot of talk about that on Coruscant and we're in the prime position to go there. The fighting there promises to be fierce, which I know you're like."

Much to Anaka's surprise she wasn't excited for action on Tyle. In fact, the first thing she wondered was if she should be fighting now. Was that a bad thing for the baby? Would fighting hurt it? What if _she_ got hurt? Meds wouldn't be good for the baby either.

"Anaka?"

She'd taken too long to react, Obi-Wan was looking at her with a worried frown. "What?" she asked. The word came out sharper than she'd meant and she winced.

"You seem distracted," Obi-Wan said, "and on edge. Are you alright?" She could feel him reaching out with the Force to prod at their bond. He was trying to figure out what was wrong.

She tightened the shields around the tiny life inside her. "I'm fine," she said. "Just tired. I didn't sleep well last night."

Her shields must have been strong enough because Obi-Wan nodded. It probably helped that she really was tired and that she often had trouble sleeping. "Have you tried meditating?" Obi-Wan asked. "If you release your anxieties into the Force you may be relaxed enough to sleep."

That was probably good advice, and Anaka made a mental note to try even though meditating had never been her strong suit. As much as she was thankful for Obi-Wan's advice she did have appearances to keep up, she couldn't have Obi-Wan thinking something was wrong and snooping. She wasn't sure how long her shields would hold up under intense scrutiny. She gave Obi-Wan a cocky grin. "Don't worry about me, Master. You'll get more gray hair than you already have."

* * *

Obi-Wan turned out to be right, within hours of his arrival the Council called and ordered them to Tyle. That was why, a week later, Anaka found herself fighting for her life on the planet's dusty, rocky surface.

She really wished she was anywhere else. Tyle was just a little too much like Tatooine and being there stirred up things she'd much rather forget. She kept hearing or seeing things that reminded her of Tusken Raiders. The memories were making sleeping difficult. To make matters worse, morning sickness wasn't any fun. It didn't really matter that she'd been suffering from it for months and refused to acknowledge what it was, she still thought it was annoying. All in all, she was tired and irritable and just wanted to kick the Separatists of this rock and move on.

Thankfully, that wish was very close to coming true. The Sep general and his forces had barricaded themselves in an old castle and if the Republic could just break in and capture the general the battle would be won. The job of doing that fell to Anaka, Rex and the rest of Torrent Company, the Finest of Skywalker's Finest.

She, Rex and Torrent crept through the passages beneath the castle. Anaka wondered if the Sep general even realized he was trying to hold off the Republic in an ancient building built on top of a series of catacombs and tunnels that would have put the Geonosians to shame. As long as she and the clones stayed quiet and weren't discovered this could all be over in the next half hour.

"It smells like someone dumped a thousand liters of wine down here," Jesse grumbled.

Anaka was pretty sure he was correct. The floors were sticky with some kind of dried liquid and it was an effort to walk quietly. A musty, sickly-sweet smell permeated the air and set her stomach rolling. She was a little annoyed by that because she'd smelled far worse in her lifetime and if she wasn't pregnant could probably have walked through this place without batting an eye.

"That doesn't make any sense," Fives said in response to Jesse's statement. The ARC trooper was working his way along the right side of the passage, his friend, Tup, right alongside him. "Why would anyone pour out this much wine?"

"Maybe the Sep general is partial to Corellian Whiskey," Tup suggested.

The clones laughed but Anaka was too busy considering the puzzle in question. There was always the possibility that these passages had once been used to store wine and that the barrels had been destroyed. However, there were no broken barrels or vats lying around and no evidence of an event that would have broken them. Something else was going on.

Anaka knelt down and ran her gloved fingers across the floor. The substance on the floor collected on her fingers in the form of a viscous jelly. Anaka's stomach clenched, she had a very bad feeling about this. Slowly, she raised her fingers to her nose and sniffed. The concentrated smell was enough to make her gag, but she held it together enough to catch a whiff of fuel under the cloying scent. She swore foully and all the clones all looked at her. "Ma'am?" Rex asked.

"This isn't wine," she said and held up her fingers. "This is flame jelly."

The next few seconds were a study of the clones' extensive vocabulary of expletives. Flame jelly was an extremely flammable and extremely explosive substance that had a very distinctive scent. It was normally covered with another scent that smelled a lot like old wine. The Seps _had_ thought to guard these passages, they'd booby-trapped them so that a single spark could ignite the whole thing.

Anaka leaped to her feet. Her head spun and she cursed softly under her breath, unsure of whether she should blame that on the baby or that Force lightning-induced heart issue that Kix was always going on about. Once she'd regained her balance, she turned to the clones. "We need to get out of here. _Now_. Follow me," she broke into a run heading deeper into the passages, and the clones followed without question. They all understood that the fact they hadn't been set on fire yet meant that the Seps didn't know they were there yet, and if they didn't push on now they might never get into the castle. They needed to take risks.

The passages stretched on and on, and every single one was coated in flame jelly. Anaka didn't even want to think about how much money the Sep general had spent on covering these passages in one of the most expensive explosives in the galaxy.

"We must be almost out of this stuff," Rex—who was running alongside her—said, "If they were to blow up much more of these tunnels they'll compromise the castle itself."

"I hope so," Anaka said. Her stomach was churning and she desperately wanted some fresh air.

They came around a corner and there were droids up ahead. A dozen spindly, useless B1s pointed their blasters at the oncoming clones. A single commando droid stood behind the ranks holding a flame thrower.

Anaka's nausea vanished in a rush of the Force and adrenaline. She dashed forward, ignoring the sound of Rex ordering the men to destroy the droids without weapons if possible. They had to be careful not to ignite the flame jelly. She flipped over the B1s' heads and landed before the commando droid. It punched out at her with its free hand but she ducked under the blow and went for the flamethrower. She knocked the weapon out of the droid's grip and used the Force to throw it over the heads of the B1s and the clones.

The droid dove at her and they rolled over and over on the sticky, jelly covered ground punching at each other. In hand to hand combat with a droid, Anaka was at a distinct disadvantage, because the droid could do far more damage to her organic body than she could to its metal one. It blackened her left eye, nearly crushed her windpipe and ended by kneeing her hard in the stomach. She Force-shoved the droid away and used her powers to hold it against the wall. She rose painfully to her feet and prepared to rip it apart with her mind. Before she could, the droid's photoreceptors dimmed and it self-destructed.

Anaka tried to contain the explosion, but she had been taken by surprise. Sparks fell to the floor and the flame jelly began to smolder. "Rex!" she yelled. "We need to move!"

They bolted down the hallways, heading deeper into the base. They were too far in to go back, they could only hope that the booby trap ended up ahead and that they could outrun the flames until they reached it.

The jelly caught fire slowly, but once there was a decent-sized flame it began to race after them. Anaka struggled to figure out how much time they had before the inevitable explosion, but it had been a long time since she'd run across flame jelly and she couldn't remember.

They darted around a corner. Smoke was filling the passages; it was white and smelled of old wine just like the flame jelly did. There was a large doorway up ahead with old swinging doors. Anaka and Rex hit it at the same time and shoved it open. The fire gaining quickly, they all ran through and found themselves running on bare floor. Anaka and Rex shoved the door closed again and they kept running. That door wasn't a blast door and it wouldn't hold back the fire. They were only a few steps from the door when the passages of flame jelly behind them exploded.

Anaka was hurled through the air. She wrapped the Force in a tight cocoon around herself; she was covered in flame jelly, and the mere heat of the explosion was probably enough to cause her to spontaneously combust right now.

She rolled over and over in the air, then slammed into the ground. The air left her lungs in a rush and she only barely managed to maintain her Force shield. She slid across the floor and hit the wall, where she lay panting for breath.

The passages slowly quieted. All Anaka could hear was the ringing in her ears, all she could see was white smoke and all she could smell was the flame jelly's nauseating stench. Her stomach heaved and she rolled onto her side half a second before she threw up. When she'd finished, she lay there, gasping.

 _Well, that was a nice, pleasant ride; wasn't it little one?_

Her heart clenched as she remembered the baby. The last half hour couldn't been good for him or her, and that commando droid had kicked her in the stomach.

Panic took her. She pressed her flesh hand against her still mostly flat stomach and fell into the Force. The baby had to be alright, it just had to be. Padém didn't even know, she couldn't miscarry. She refused to.

After a few terrifying seconds, she found the baby's life. It felt strong and healthy. It was okay.

Anaka was so relieved she burst into tears.

It was several seconds before she realized that she was sitting there crying like a ninny when she had men to gather and a battle to win.

 _You're a Jedi General, Skywalker. Pull it together._

She took a deep breath and used the Force to erase the evidence of her tears. She rubbed her sooty hands over her face to complete the charade and stood up. Her hand still lingered on her belly and she moved it just before she called out into the smoke, "Rex? Can you hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am," Rex's voice called from somewhere to her right. She began to move carefully towards him. She found him within seconds, huddled against a wall with Jesse and Kix.

"Did we lose anyone?" she asked.

Through the smoke she could only just make out Rex tilting his head as he listened to something on his helmet comm. "No, ma'am," he said after a minute. "All men accounted for."

"Good," Anaka said. "Get everyone together, we have a Sep general to capture."

* * *

A cheery bonfire glowed in the darkness of Tyle's cold plains. A group of clone troopers surrounded it, soaking in its heat and light. Anaka sat against a supplies box a little ways from the blaze trying to fathom everything that had happened.

She had almost lost the baby, she felt sure of it. The baby was fine—she knew because she kept checking every couple minutes—but he or she could have easily not been, and that was not something Anaka wanted. She wanted to have this baby and she wanted to watch is grow up, even if it meant she was thrown out of the Order in disgrace.

"You alright, ma'am?" Anaka looked up to see Rex standing over her, bare-faced and frowning in worry.

"Of course I'm alright, Rex," she said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You just seem…distracted," the clone captain said, "and worried. Is something wrong?"

 _Nothing that I feel like trying to explain to you._ "I'm fine, Rex."

"Alright…" Rex looked anything but convinced; he shifted from one foot to the other. "Can I sit down then?"

"I don't need you keep tabs on me, Rex," Anaka said. She wanted to be left alone to ponder her problems in peace.

"I know, ma'am," Rex said. "But brooding never does anyone any good."

Fine, she could deal with Rex keeping her company for a while, he was normally quiet anyways. "Alright," she said.

Rex sat down next to her but with a good distance of space between them. Anaka rolled her eyes. Rex was always worried about someone getting the wrong idea about their relationship. Anaka couldn't care less, after all she was married and carrying her husband's child, why should she care what people thought about her relationship with her second-in-command?

Rex made small talk for a while, but then lapsed into silence. Anaka used this as an opportunity to return to her musing (brooding as Rex and Obi-Wan would term it). She had to be more careful; the baby had almost died today and if she kept on like this the next time she might not be so lucky. She needed to find a way to lessen the risk, which was the same as trying to avoid the battlefield, but how could she do that without someone realizing she was trying to avoid active combat? That was completely unlike her and anyone who actually knew her would realize something was wrong. She would need an excuse to say in the back of the ranks, but what? She could fake a twisted ankle, maybe, but she'd fought on worse before and the instant he heard of her lie, Kix would be all over her making sure she was alright. She'd need something else, something harder to verify…

"Are you hungry, General?" she was jerked out of her thoughts at the sound of Rex's voice. He was holding a simple tin of field rations, someone must have warmed them up for her.

As thoughtful as the gesture was, it was the last thing Anaka wanted right now. The very smell of field rations had been making her sick recently and that smell combined with the sickly odor of the flame jelly still clinging to her hair and clothes was over the top.

Unable to come up with an excuse and utter it in time, Anaka just pushed to her feet and left at a run. She managed to make it behind a nearby building and out of the clones' lines of sight before she threw up. When she was done, she leaned against the cold stone wall behind her and chuckled. "Thank you, little one, for taking a dislike to something I have to eat on a regular basis," she said touching her stomach, "All told you seem to be bent on making my life as difficult as possible. I'm not sure if I should be proud that you've obviously inherited my recalcitrant nature or terrified for your teenage years."

She heard footsteps nearing the corner of the building and closed her mouth quickly, there wasn't time for anything else before Rex stepped around the corner. He took in the scene and his lips pursed. "Are you alright, General? Should I get Kix?"

She almost lied and said that she'd just been a little sick to her stomach. It would be so easy. Of course, getting away from Kix when Rex inevitably called him wouldn't be, but she didn't think either clone would realize the truth without being told. However, the more she turned every angle of this problem over in the mind, the more she realized that this wasn't a secret she could keep on her own. The fact that she was getting sick at the smell of field rations was the least of her problems. She wouldn't be able to get off the battlefield without someone else to back her up and cover for her. Rex was the best confidant she would be able to find.

"This is pretty normal," she said instead. "It will clear up, eventually."

"What?" Rex blinked at her. "Who cares if it's going to clear up eventually? Don't you want to do something about it now?"

"There's really nothing we can do," Anaka said. "It's supposed to be get better after a while, but with my luck it could be months."

"Months?" Rex rolled his eyes. "That's it, I'm calling Kix. I don't know what weird bug you've managed to pick up, but you can't keep hiding when you feel crummy just because you don't want him to prescribe you anymore medication." He raised his wrist.

"Rex, stop," Anaka ordered, Rex obeyed almost reflexively, just as he always did when given an order. "There's nothing Kix can do. This is normal. I'll be fine in about nine months—actually, it's more like six now, but still..." _Please, please understand what I'm implying so I don't need to spell it out._ She mentally begged.

She wasn't that lucky. "I'm not going to just ignore this for _six months_!" Rex snapped and lifted his wrist again.

 _Well, so much for hoping he'd catch the drift._ Anaka took a deep breath. "I'm _pregnant_ , Rex."

Rex stopped again and looked at her. She waited for a reaction, but all she got was a confused eyebrow. "You don't know what that is, do you?" she asked.

"Ah…Of course I do, General," Rex said in his least convincing tone of voice.

Anaka sighed. So much for avoiding the awkwardness of having to explain. She launched into an abbreviated overview of normal human reproduction that left them both blushing furious red. When she was finished, they lapsed into an awkward silence. Rex scuffed one boot against the ground, then cleared his throat. "So…does Kix know?"

"No," Anaka said.

"You should tell him," Rex said. "He'd probably be of way more help than me."

"Would I have to, you know, _explain_ it to him too?" Anaka asked.

Rex blushed again. "Probably not, ma'am. I assume he knows all about such things. That is his job after all."

Anaka thought it over. Having Kix in her confidence might be helpful, especially if she wanted to get out of frontlines battles. "Fine," she said. "Do you know where he is?"

* * *

"What?" Kix stared at Anaka and Rex with huge eyes. "If you mean this as a joke, I'm not laughing."

 _Well, at least I didn't have to explain it to him._ Anaka sighed. "I'm not joking, Kix."

The clone medic stared at her for several minutes, his jaw slowly going slack. Then he turned to Rex. "Are you the father?"

Rex blushed even redder than he had when Anaka had told him what was going on. "No!" he said holding up his hands. "It's not me!"

"General Kenobi?" Kix's eyes turned to Anaka.

Anaka rolled her eyes. "Does everyone think that Obi-Wan and I are lying when we stay we're like siblings?" she said. "No, my husband is the father."

"Husband?" Kix looked like he was going to pass out. "General, why didn't you tell me all this?"

"I didn't think it mattered," Anaka said.

"You could have at least told me there was a chance you could become pregnant," Kix said, pacing back and forth in the small tent they'd cornered him in. "I wouldn't have subscribed you _half_ those medications if I'd known."

"That's not a problem," Anaka said. "I don't take most of the medications you prescribe."

Kix rolled his eyes. "I never thought I'd be in a position where that was actually a good thing." He heaved a tired sigh. "Do I even want to know why you deemed it necessary to tell me this now?"

"If the Council figures out about this, I'll be in a lot of trouble—more trouble than I've ever been in before—" she said, "and if something happens to the baby, I'll never forgive myself," she tugged on the end of her braid. "I guess, this is me admitting that I need help."

A silence fell over the three of them. "Can I ask who the—who your husband is?" Kix asked.

"Senator Padém Amidala of Naboo," Anaka said.

Kix's jaw dropped. "You're kidding. I thought that—Well, I knew you two were friends, but I never imagined that—" he stared for a full minute then burst into laughter. "You realize that according to Beings Magazine he's the galaxy's most attractive male?"

Anaka glared at him. "I may have heard."

"You read Beings Magazine?" Rex asked.

"Jesse does," Kix said. "He fills me in."

"Okay, so now that we've established that I'm married to the most attractive man in the galaxy, can we return to the problem at hand?" Anaka said.

"Yes," seemingly happy to get away from the topic of popular tabloids, Kix's face smoothed out. "Does Senator Amidala know he's going to be a father?"

"No," Anaka said. "I haven't seen him in months and I have no way to contact him without blowing the secret. It's probably best we leave him out of this."

Kix bit his lip. It was obvious he didn't really agree.

"If I can find a way to talk to him face to face, I will," Anaka said. "But I won't put the secret at risk by comming him."

"What about General Kenobi?" Rex asked.

"We can't tell him," Anaka said quickly. "He'll tell the Council."

"Surely he wouldn't sell you out like that," Kix said. "You say he's like your brother and brothers don't do stuff like that, especially when their siblings need them."

"You don't understand," Anaka explained. "I view Obi-Wan as my brother, but he's a Jedi. He won't allow himself to have a strong bond with me. I'm his former apprentice—his partner—nothing more. If he learns that I'm breaking the Code he will turn me into a Council, no matter what."

Rex and Kix looked at each like they didn't believe her, but didn't comment. "Alright, so if we don't tell General Kenobi, what are we going to do?"

"How far along are you?" Kix asked.

"About three months," Anaka said.

"Then we've got a little breathing room," Kix said. "Your robes are pretty dense so we should be able to hide it for a while. It shouldn't be too hard to fake a little injury to get you confined to the cruiser as well."

"That's only a temporary fix, though," Anaka said. "I'm going to have to…go into hiding or something eventually. That's where things get complicated."

"Getting you returned to Coruscant won't be hard," Rex said.

"True, but I don't want the Council to figure out about this," Anaka said. "That means I can't be on Coruscant. I need to be somewhere else, far enough out of the way so that I won't run into any Jedi or reporters, but I also can't be AWOL."

"That's much more difficult…" Rex said.

Kix frowned and pulled a datapad out of his belt. He looked something up on it quickly. "I don't think it's impossible. There's a couple avenues I can look into, but it might take me a couple days. I'll do some research on…babies and stuff too; I'm a field medic not an obstetrician."

"Well, you've definitely been more help than me," Rex said looking embarrassed. "I feel so inadequate."

"You get the all-important job of making sure nothing happens to her," Kix said not looking up from his datapad.

"I don't need to be babysat," Anaka spat.

"We know, but humor us, General," Kix said looking up and giving her a small smile. "We don't want anything happening to you or Baby Skywalker. Plus, if you're going to keep vomiting at the smell of field rations you might need someone to cover for you."

* * *

The next couple weeks passed in a standstill. The 501st and the 224th finished things up on Tyle. Anaka hoped that they would return to Coruscant, but they were assigned a new mission to free the planet Lyon. Anaka acted excited to "get some more action" then pretending to twist her ankle doing her daily exercises. Kix declared her unfit for duty and she put up a huge pretend stink commanding of the space battle from the cruiser. Obi-Wan and the Council never suspected a thing.

After they'd freed Lyon, Kix called Rex and Anaka to the medbay. They met in a private exam room with soundproofing, deactivated security cameras and opaque windows.

"I think I've figured it out," Kix said, once they were sure no one could be eavesdropping.

"That's great!" Rex exclaimed. "What's the plan?"

"First things first," Kix turned to Anaka. "How are you feeling?"

Anaka hitched herself up and the end of the examination table. "Morning sickness is _chizk_ , but at least I can eat the food from the mess hall without being sick. I keep having the weirdest craving for pallies."

"What are those?" Kix asked.

"They're these fruits that grow on Tatooine," Anaka said. "I haven't actually seen one since I left Tatooine, so I guess it's just my luck that I develop a craving for a food I can't get," she laughed then sobered. "But let's hear your idea, Kix."

"I did some research on the Republic's refugee camps," Kix said. "Some of them are very small and out of the way and are manned by a company of clones and a single Jedi. There's one such camp on a backwater planet called Rígadow. GAR forces stay there for periods of six months. The next rotation happens in a month. We'll be able to hide this until then and the child will be born before we have to transfer out."

"That sounds like it would work," Anaka said. "But how do you plan to convince the Council to send the most famous Jedi in the Order there? I've never even heard of Rígadow."

"I was thinking about that," Kix said. "Remember that heart issue we were talking about?"

"Yes," Anaka said. "Whatever you might think, I do listen when you talk to me."

"I know you listen," Kix said, "I just wish you'd take my advice every once and a while."

"I'm taking it now, aren't I?" Anaka said.

"Yes," Kix admitted and went on, "I was thinking that we could exaggerate how serious that heart issue is. If we're careful, we should be able to make a case for you being put on _light_ duty. We'll have to careful that we don't make it so serious that you end on medical leave, which would be counterproductive."

"I don't see how getting her on light duty helps us," Rex said.

"When I report on her heart issues, I'll recommend that she be given light duty in a post like Rígadow," Kix said. "Rígadow would be by far the best choice for the Council because even though the planet's unimportant, it's still in contested space, so the Council could post her there without officially labeling her as light duty. They'll want to do that, because she's the most famous Jedi in the galaxy and the civilian population will go nuts if they figure out there's something wrong with her."

"Won't the Council think that there's something fishy about this?" Rex said. "What if they guess the truth?"

"They won't," Anaka said. "They're Jedi: pregnancy will be the last thing they think of."

"What about us, though?" Rex asked.

"I can recommend that Torrent Company accompany her," Kix said. "I can cite troop fatigue, which isn't even a slight lie. If that doesn't work, you can put up a stink about it, General, and if they still refuse, well then we'll have to fill the medics of whatever company does get sent in on it."

"Can we trust them?" Anaka said.

"I trust all the medics in this legion with my life," Kix said. "But it's a complicated position to put any clone in. We're not under orders to report our COs for breaking the Jedi Code, but no one's ever been caught doing it before. Falsifying medical records is a totally different story; that you can get in real trouble for."

Anaka slid off the table and put her hands on Kix's shoulders. "I'm sorry for involving you in this Kix; if you want out you just need to tell me."

"No!" Kix shook his head. "Ma'am, I will do anything to help you! I don't care how much trouble I get in. You're my CO and I follow you anywhere. I just meant that it's a tough position for the younger medics who haven't had the time to build up the kind of personal loyalty to you that Torrent Company has."

Anaka found herself having to blink back tears at Kix's loyalty. She pulled herself together and smiled. "Alright, we'll cross that bridge if we need to. What do we need to do to fake my fairly-serious heart condition?"

"More serious heart condition," Kix corrected. "This is an actual problem. I'm going to have to do some research about how it might affect you as this whole thing progresses, but that's not the most pressing issue. Do you really want to go through with this?"

"Well, I can't think of another way to hide this without going AWOL," Anaka said. "Can you, Rex?"

"No, ma'am."

"So I guess that means there's only one more thing I need to ask," Anaka smiled at each clone in turn. "Are you two ready to hoodwink the Jedi Order, the GAR and the Galactic Republic at large?"

"Yes, ma'am," Kix said.

"Whenever you are," Rex grinned.

* * *

 **So there's the story. As I said, not much of an ending, but if I tried to write something long with this (well, longer) it would never get done. For those of you who are curious, yes Anaka would eventually be able to sense that she's carrying twins. I'm not sure how old the babies would have to be before she could sense them as separate entities, but rest assured the whole "there are twins" thing wouldn't be a surprise in this AU.**

 **Please vote and comment! What did you think? Did you like this or was it too weird?**

 **Emjen**


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